


you could really go (no one's gonna stop you)

by baliset



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: AU where Derrick never died, Gen, Ill Advised Road Trips, Post-S11 Siesta, maincord prohibited swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baliset/pseuds/baliset
Summary: The sound is soft, gentle taps on the glass, and Jaylen thinks it’s rain until she realizes that this is San Francisco, not Seattle. She opens the window without getting out of bed, kneeling so she can stick her head out to look. She almost gets a pebble in the eye for her trouble.“Ow,” she hisses, then, “Derrick, what the hell?”(or: jaylen hotdogfingers gets a late-night visitor.)
Relationships: Jaylen Hotdogfingers & Derrick Krueger
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	you could really go (no one's gonna stop you)

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh this takes place in an au where either derrick never died or somebody else got incinerated in his place on season 3 day 80. don't think about it too hard because it does not really matter in the context of this fic.
> 
> jaylen's characterization and nightmare friendship with derrick is entirely inspired by [kaylee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidgay)'s portrayal of her in fics and rp!

It’s not that she hates San Francisco. She likes her apartment there, for whatever that’s worth. She likes living with NaN as a roommate. She even likes the overpriced coffee shop they live overtop of, and the dank cave of a basement that she has to haul her clothes down to do laundry in every other week.

It’s not that she misses Seattle, either. Sure,it’s home, but Jaylen burned her way through that place like a bushfire, and she knows what the people there think of her. She just misses being places that _aren’t_ San Francisco; being on the road for games, pinballing from Dallas to Kansas City to Yellowstone and back again. She misses playing the game and moving to the next stadium, win or lose.

The Commissioner keeps saying the siesta will be over _soon_ , that they’ll all get to play again _soon_ , and Jaylen thinks that if she hears another _soon_ with no date attached, she might start beaning people again. She’s thinking about it, just making a list in her head of people she might hit (Parker is at the top), when someone starts throwing rocks at her bedroom window.

The sound is soft, gentle taps on the glass, and Jaylen thinks it’s rain until she realizes that this is San Francisco, not Seattle. She opens the window without getting out of bed, kneeling so she can stick her head out to look. She almost gets a pebble in the eye for her trouble.

“Ow,” she hisses, then, “Derrick, what the hell?”

Derrick fucking Krueger is standing on the sidewalk outside her apartment, his van idling in the street behind him. He grins up at her, and shoves his hands in his pockets innocently.

“Let’s go for a drive,” he says, like a man who didn’t just show up unannounced in the middle of the goddamn night.

“Are you fucking _possessed_?” Jaylen asks. “It’s two in the morning.”

“Are you coming or not?” Derrick asks.

Jaylen slams the window shut, and gets out of bed to put warmer clothes on.

***

It used to be that Jaylen didn’t think about Derrick, because to think about him was to acknowledge that he existed, that the universe had filled the space she’d once occupied with someone else. Every fact about Derrick ran through her mind as if it were a sieve - his name, his jersey number, his face. And then she _did_ think about him, but only to think, _You replaced me, and I will never forgive you._

Seasons passed, and grudges thawed. There were unavoidable interactions. A conversation on the balcony of Mike’s apartment, and another in the corner of Teddy’s basement, at a show neither of them wanted to be at. And now Jaylen looks at Derrick and thinks _That’s my friend Derrick, who hates sweets and can only read books if they’re on tape. That’s my friend who went to Portland State and let me pierce his eyebrow after the Season 11 finals. That’s my friend, and I trust him._

***

Jaylen’s not feeling particularly trusting when she walks out the door in sweatpants and an old Garages hoodie, but in her defense, it’s two in the morning. Derrick looks too wide awake for the hour, maybe a little manic, but he’s always joked about being nocturnal.

“Where are we going?” Jaylen asks, eyeing the van. It always manages to look like it’s on the verge of giving up the ghost and falling apart in the middle of the road, but never does.

“Oh, I dunno,” Derrick says, cheerfully. “Away. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m gonna need a little more than _away_ , Der.” She plants her feet on the sidewalk, folding her arms over her chest. She probably should have told NaN she was going out, or at least left a note, but...well, NaN sometimes vanishes for long stretches of time without explanation. They probably get it.

Derrick arches his eyebrows like a challenge. “Okay, where do _you_ want to go?”

Jaylen isn’t expecting the question, and she chews on the inside of her lip, swallowing back whatever retort is threatening to bubble up out of her throat.

“You drove all the way down here without having a place in mind,” she says, instead.

“Well,” Derrick says, “I didn’t really know where I was going when I left Seattle, either.”

“What?”

“I was just…” He gestures vaguely. “Driving. I was on my way back to the Garage after a gig, and I thought, you know, I could just keep going. I could drive straight past the Garage and out of Seattle, and not go to practice the next day, and nobody was going to stop me.”

“Pretty sure your common sense is supposed to be the thing that stops you,” Jaylen says, but she gets it. She does. It’s the same impulse she has to insult the Lovers to their faces, to start beaning people on the field again to see what happens. A kind of self-destruction that lies just slightly out of reach because of what other people have decided is correct, or fair, or acceptable behavior for a blaseball player.

“Mike is, like, seventy five percent of my impulse control, and he wasn’t in the van,” Derrick shoots back wryly. “Anyway, I went to see my dads in Astoria, and then I thought, what if I didn’t go back to Seattle? It’s not like we’re playing games. Teddy can’t punish me for not being on the field.”

Jaylen imagines the look on Teddy’s face when one of his pitchers is missing at practice for days in a row, and thinks that the image might sustain her for at least the next week.

“Wait,” she says, suddenly. “Does Mike -”

“Called him from the road. He knows where I am,” Derrick says.

“And he didn’t lose his mind?”

“He trusts me,” Derrick says, simply, and leaves it at that. There’s a lot about Mike and Derrick’s relationship that Jaylen hasn’t been privy to over the past few seasons, especially the seasons when she was dead, and she’s learned better than to ask questions about it. Or at least, to ask _Derrick_ questions about it. It always gets a joke answer, or something hostile, and nothing in between.

“Come on,” Derrick says. He’s leaning against the van, now, playing with a lighter he must have pulled out of his jacket pocket. Jaylen watches the tiny flame light, extinguish, and light again, casting a yellow glow against his fingers. “I’m sick of Seattle, so I _know_ you’re sick of this place. Games aren’t starting any time soon. Let’s go somewhere. Anywhere you want.”

 _Anywhere_ feels like too much. Jaylen isn’t used to going to cities that don’t have blaseball stadiums in them, or aren’t less than an hour away from Seattle. She wants to leave San Francisco, sure, but she doesn’t know where else would have her, or what she’d do when she gets there. She barely knows what to do _here_ , where she lives. _Anywhere_ is a promise that Derrick can’t make good on, a check he can’t cash - or maybe it’s not, because he’s got a manic look in his eye and a van with what Jaylen presumes is a full tank of gas.

“Death Valley,” she says, finally, because it’s the funniest thing that comes to mind.

Derrick gives her a look, and tucks his lighter away. “Really?”

“Really,” Jaylen says. “I’ve never been.”

“And after Death Valley?”

 _We go home,_ Jaylen wants to say, but then thinks better of it. Derrick’s right - they’ve got time to waste, more time than she knows what to do with, and she misses being out on the road. It’ll be different with just the two of them, instead of a whole team packed into a bus, but maybe different is good.

“We pick somewhere you want to go,” she says. “And we can keep doing it until - until we get bored, or tired, or whatever.”

“Oh,” Derrick says. He grins. “I’ve never been to Vegas.”

Jaylen snorts. “Can I pack a bag? I’m not wearing sweatpants to Vegas.”

“Sure,” Derrick says, and motions her off, shooing her with one hand.

Jaylen gets as far as the door before she looks back at him. Derrick’s still leaning against the van, tapping his fingers idly against his leg, and he raises his eyebrows at her.

“I’ll leave without you if you take too long.”

“No, you won’t,” Jaylen says, and they both know it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from spaceship by art sorority. you can find me on twitter @corpserevivers or in the crabitat discord server, and comments and are as always appreciated!


End file.
